Perhaps, to an employer attempting to weed their way through several hundred resumes see the fact that an individual did put forth the effort to work through these classes as a plus?

I have worked with many self-taught programmers, and many of them have been good; But there are also too many who are just that, "programmers". They can sling a bit of code to solve a problem -- the one problem they are looking at. Often, due to lack of formal background in algorithm analysis and software development technique, they end up being just "code monkeys" and you can not rely on them to help you create a system which requires an understanding of "Software Engineering" and "Coding in the Large".

Of course there are also B.S. C.S. individuals who managed to get through school and are worthless as well -- but the presence of the little piece of paper can be a filter if there are just too many resumes.